“Sorry. I have a law degree to finish. And your brother needs me to get this agreement done.” She poked his chest. God. Solid muscle.
“Then we have stuff in common.” He grinned. “Luke asked me to get more involved with the hotel.”
“I think you should.” She was glad Luke had figured out his brother was in a dark place. “I think you’d make an amazing concierge manager.”
“Is that like PR?” he asked.
“Yep. Schmooze with the guests. Make sure everyone’s comfortable. Repeat business is key. A crap experience won’t just tank one person from staying again, a bad review on Yelp and Trip Advisor can take a place down.” Her mother’s place had suffered those.
“I don’t know.” He looked away. “I’ve wanted to be a successful actor for so long. I don’t know how to give it up.”
“I understand.” She checked her phone for the time, she had an hour to get ready for another day of hell. TGIF! “It’s more important to be happy with something you only want a little, than miserable wanting something that’s always out of your grasp. Plus, you’re young. Keep at it.”
“Asking you to run away with me?” he said with a flick of his tongue.
Ignoring if that was an invitation to make out, she said, “I’ll tell Tristan.”
“Ha!” he said, flexing his shoulders. “Just don’t tell Luke.”
“That’s easy. He hardly speaks to me.” A coil of unhappiness unraveled in her.
“My brother’s such a jerk.”
Luke
THAT WAS THE THIRD time Gray called him a jerk. Hovering outside the door to the gym, Luke overheard his youngest brother talking with Lexi. Did Gray feel that way, or was he going after Lexi? Would his brother do that to him after he’d confessed how he felt about her?
Ten minutes earlier, he’d cast a curious glance at Gray going into the gym wearing jeans and nothing else. Even his feet were bare. When Luke got closer and saw Lexi was in there, on the floor, his heart hammered in his chest. He almost busted in, but then they’d started talking.
He only caught some sentences here and there. Lexi was soft spoken. He liked that about her. She saved her sharp biting smart-mouth comments for when it counted. She’d make a fabulous lawyer because she’d lull an opponent into thinking she was a pussy cat when she was really a tiger.
That’s what blew him away. Admittedly, he’d been turned on thinking he’d have some innocent, oh no, what do I do, in his bed. Lexi surprised the hell out of him when she kept in step with his seasoned needs. Sucked him off better than any woman ever had.
Time to bust up this party.
“Grayson, don’t bother Alexis,” he said, strolling in, but became alarmed when she jumped away from his brother.
“He’s not bothering me.” She folded her arms. “Unless him asking me to marry him is a bother.”
“What?”
“Relax, I was kidding.” Gray clapped him on the shoulder and trekked toward the door. “Don’t be a dick and screw it up with this one.”
Jerk. Dick. Was that his vocabulary?
“Working out?” Luke asked Lexi, tossing a scrutinizing glance at her. The tank top and terry cloth short shorts didn’t look like exercise gear.
“No. I mean, I might. I used to go running. Sometimes. My school days were grueling.”
“Get used to it. First year associates are chum.”
She smiled. “I know. Anyway, I was trying to figure out how big this gym was. In one exhibit on amenities, it states you have to maintain a gym of at least one thousand square feet.”
He stared at her. “This is clearly not one thousand square feet.”
“There are other structural areas you won’t be compliant on day one, too,” she said, sounding like a...lawyer advising him. Damn, he liked that. “Your finishes are breathtaking. They need some TLC. But I think the Chevalier customer would love this hotel.”
“I know that.” He considered apologizing for the other night, except, she didn’t seem to be mad. Maybe Gray smoothed things over.
And what’s this bananas comment about him wanting to marry her? Was that his brother’s play? Make Luke jealous enough to get out of his own way with her? He wasn’t falling for that. “Okay, when you have all your comments ready, we’ll sit down,” he said, rocking on his feet, eager to get his run on.
“I’ll have them soon.”
“The whole thing?” He’d been ready to grab a towel, but her comment shocked him.
“Sure.” She tilted her head. “Reading a contract isn’t hard.”
Hard. God, if he stared at her any longer, he’d get hard. He’d gone there to work out, his jogging pants wouldn’t hide how she got him going.
“It’s still early and I would like to get a hard run in,” he said to move her along, although his use of the word hard raised one of her eyebrows. Dumbass.
“By all means, don’t let me stop you. Do you work out every morning?”
“Usually.” He lifted his arms to stretch, this conversation was eating into his workout time allotment. “My other gym is across town. I just use the treadmill in here to get my heart rate up.”
“With that body, I’m not surprised you work out a lot.” Did she just go there? Her eyes undressed him. God, why did that feel so good? She’d just got a dose of Gray’s fit, young bod, yet she still stared at him like he was a god.
How should he play this? Snap at her for bringing up their amazing night again or scoff it away. Dismiss it. Any answer he flung back wouldn’t have the right punch. Just the smell of her made him dizzy and unable to think. A few more minutes with her and he won’t be able to stop himself from doing something incredibly stupid. Without bothering to see if anyone was coming in, he lifted his tee-shirt over his head. “This body?”
Her breath hitched, but she said nothing. He surprised her. Man, those eyes drinking him in sent warm and electric currents through him at the same time. With her lip quivering, he thought he won. Until she lifted her tank-top off.
And she wasn’t wearing a fucking bra.
He lunged for her and covered her with his tee-shirt. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?”
“I work out shirtless.”
“Me, too.”
“Stop it, Lexi.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop torturing me, okay?” He broke. “I can’t be with you. Don’t you get that?”
“You’re the boss. You can do whatever you want,” she egged him on. Damn her.
“Put your shirt on, please.” He was now begging women to put clothes on. How did he get here?
“No.”
A firestorm rushed through him. Through clenched teeth, he grunted, “I will carry you through the lobby like that. I have six inches and probably seventy pounds on you.”
“That was a lot more than six inches and seventy pounds I felt when you were on top of me.”
He took a heavy breath, bosses didn’t like to be spoken back to, but lawyers loved arguments and challenges. That fire in his core heated up. “That’s it.” He pushed her up against the door, the narrow window next to her head. “If you keep looking at me like—”
“Like I did Friday night?”
“Yes.”
“Because you liked it.”
“Yes,” he said in a breathy rush, surrendering.
He loved it, really. Because after three years of being used for his hotel and his money, Lexi’s adoring eyes just for him, and okay, probably his handsome face and his build, was such a breath of fresh air.
He’d tear the world apart to have that feeling again. But it would damn near destroy his brother’s trust in him if he lost it with her.
“You’re killing me, Alexis.” His cock grew painfully hard, challenging the fit of his workout pants. Lexi’s smart mouth teased the primal beast inside him, the side he didn’t often let free because it was like unleashing a hungry lion.
“No. This makes you feel alive.” She bit her lip
and he felt the lust pulsing through her. “You told me yourself.”
Except, he was pretty sure he’d said, she made him feel alive. Unable to take it, he pressed the hard length in his pants against her stomach. “Tell me to stop.” Please.
“No. I want this. You want it, too.” She ran a finger down his naked torso, the feel of her touch on his stomach heading straight for his aching dick obliterated his battle.
“I can’t think straight anymore. There’s only so much a man can take.” His mouth crashed down on hers, drinking in her kisses while she devoured him back. All the sex they’d had should have satisfied them both for a year. No, it opened him up and he wanted more. The feel of her against him was a drug he never experienced. “Is this what you want?” He gripped the sides of her face. “Do you want me out of control?”
“You know I can handle you.” Her mouth pressed into his, opening softly, her velvet tongue stroking his.
His body reacted violently, the control gone. He grabbed one of her legs, yanking her by the knee creating that apex between her thighs to bury his hard-on against. Sweat trickled down his back and if this didn’t stop, he’d lose his fucking mind and take her right here in the gym.
“Someone may come in here,” she said, skimming her hands along the waistband of his workout pants.
God, those fuckers were going down, weren’t they? This was going to happen. This was how he would fuck everything up, because he just couldn’t take it anymore. “Not with my weight against the door.”
“This might help.” Lexi reached up and flicked the lights off. With darkness surrounding them, Lexi lowered his pants, briefs and all.
With his pants sitting right below his ass, the air hit his hard dick and next his cock was in her hands. So warm and firm. He kissed her mouth while she stroked his erection.
Her hands felt like silk wrapped around his cock, a few more strokes and he’d come all over her fingers. Not that she’d mind. She proved she wasn’t afraid of a little mess the other night.
“It’ll be better after this.” She had that power over him, after all.
No. No it won’t. This had to stop. They’d gone too far and only after a week. A world record to screw things up with an assistant. Never like this, getting jerked off by one. Damn, this was wrong. He wouldn’t lead her on to believe there could be something more between them.
“That’s it. Stop.” He fisted himself, man so hard, and on the brink of release. Pulling up his pants, he ground out, “No more.” He couldn’t run now considering his cock dribbled a stifled climax down his leg, like tears falling.
“Why are you mad?” Lexi asked, leaning against the door. Her pupils dilated needing the same fix.
“You want me to be mad.” Guilt scraped the insides of his gut. “Because getting this close was wrong, and it’s not happening again. Do you hear me? If I have to...”
“Have to what?” She bent down to grab her tank top strewn on the floor.
“Just stay away from me,” he pushed out, feeling like a fist closed around his throat. It wasn’t what he wanted. It’s what he needed.
“Have it your way.” She let a stare linger until she turned around.
God, she had an amazing body. Youth. She had that slim build, narrow waist, and bony shoulders he liked. Soft. Delicate. But he couldn’t have her. Not like this. Not now.
“Tristan doesn’t know I slept with you last week,” he blurted.
She pushed her pink hair away from her face when she turned around. “And if he found out, he wouldn’t have hired me?”
“I’d bet my life on it.” He got his breathing under control while panic welled up inside him. “And he can’t know what almost happened just now. Do you hear me?”
She shook her head looking angry. “I don’t believe this.”
“You don’t want me, Lexi. I’m a broken son of a bitch. I almost fucked my assistant in the gym. Why would you want a guy like that?”
“I’ll think about that one over coffee. See you in the office, boss.” Lexi stormed away leaving him a breathless wreck.
He wasn’t going to survive this, and it was a matter of days before he lost everything. Including his mind.
Lexi
DRIPPING WET FROM A shower, Lexi couldn’t stop shaking. Shame from losing control and throwing herself at Luke crawled all over her. She sat at the desk in her hotel room, opened her laptop, and signed into her email.
With tears in her eyes, she started a message to Luke.
I QUIT.
[DELETE]
She lost track of how long she’d been hiding in her room, unable to face Luke. Not that he would make eye contact with her. He’d avoided her before that massive mistake in the gym. What the hell was wrong with her? Just a look at his bare chest and smelling that scent of his made her lose her mind. His sexuality was so raw, humming off of him like the motor of an expensive car. They both just lost their heads. But how were they going to work together and get this deal done if they kept going from zero to one hundred and then negative-fifty?
Frustrated with herself, she called her mom. Surprisingly, she didn’t get interrogated for not checking in all week. Holding her stomach, Lexi let the clusterfuck of what happened with Luke unfold. Including spending the night with him. Through her mother’s gasps, Lexi reminded her, it was a singular momentary lapse of judgment.
“I’ve been in school for eighteen years, Mom. I missed how the real world works as far as relationships,” she said. “Now I work for a man I can’t stop thinking about. But he wants nothing to do with me.”
“You won’t like what I’m about to say.” Her mother’s tone sounded scary enough.
“Okay. Hit me.” Lexi dug in and prepared for the verbal lashing.
“He who loves least controls the relationship.” Sylvia added a popping sound with the p of relationship.
“I don’t understand.” Except, she worried the meaning behind the statement was worse than how it sounded.
“If Luke has been brushing you off, he’s not interested, sweetie.”
The stay away from me was a message she’d heard loud and clear. “I’ll feel better when I’m home this weekend.”
“What?” her mother asked sharply. “Why are you coming home?”
“Because I live there.” And she longed for her own lumpy bed.
“You’re in a five-star hotel, Lexi. Enjoy it. Enjoy the city.”
She was curious why her mother pushed her not to come home. Three days out of the house and her mom sounded as if she already enjoyed not having her around.
“What do I do when I see Luke slink through this hotel tonight or Saturday night? Prowling. Looking all fabulous and adored.” The sob squeaked out of her chest.
“Oh, sweetie. I didn’t realize you cared about him like this.”
“I didn’t think so either.”
Luke didn’t know how she felt. And the last thing she’d do now was confess how she might have fallen in love with him.
CHAPTER TEN
Lexi
Lexi spent the weekend in a culture coma, but at least it flew by in a blur. She did all the touristy things New York City had to offer. Things she never got a chance to do because she’d always been a student. Broke and buried in her books.
Knowing some cash was coming her way, she broke out her rusty Macy’s credit card and tried out all the lipsticks at the cosmetic counter. She bought the ones she thought would drive Luke the craziest. She dawdled around museums, and combed all the trails in Central Park. When she found the puppy store and spent an hour getting her face licked, she thought she’d gone to heaven. Puppies! Who knew?
The time she spent in the hotel was an exercise in avoiding the lobby and any other common spaces where she could bump into Luke. She avoided the gym like the plague. All her work had paid off, and she’d not seen a lick of him. How bizarre to lie in her bed, knowing twenty floors above her, he was in his bed. And she’d hoped with her all her might, he was alone.
&nbs
p; The Sterling was a big hotel, but its employees felt like a tight-knit family. All the nods of recognition as she strolled to the escalator to clock in Monday morning suggested by now the staff knew who she was. She certainly understood the sympathetic smiles.
After a week, the shine and fun of her new job had worn thin and her cubicle felt cramped. Even a little dark. Right, Luke stole the sun. Not surprising, he was a freaking god. She sighed, setting a cup of tea down on her desk ready to tackle more of the Chevalier contract.
“Good morning.” Jessie plopped down at her desk, all smiles and friendly.
“Morning,” Lexi said, figuring it was smart to be congenial and gain an ally. “How was your weekend?”
“So much fun,” Jessie chirped. “You?”
“Same.” Thanks to the puppies.
The morning crawled along, but listening to Jessie manage Tristan’s side of the world fascinated her. Calls and details about the upcoming renovation and housekeeping drama kept Lexi’s ears perked up.
Returning from the breakroom with a fresh tea, she spotted a mountain of thick vellum envelopes on Jessie’s desk. The top one was addressed to Luke.
Fingering the pile, she asked, “What’s all these?”
“Invites,” Jessie said, sipping the largest cup of iced coffee she’d ever seen. “Fundraisers, galas, charity balls, VIP parties. I have to go through them this week and respond.”
She picked up the stack and flipped through a few more. Yep, all for Luke. “If these are for Luke, I can do that. I am his assistant.” One he screwed, but assistant all the same.
“I’ve done them the last couple of years, it’s no big deal. Plus, it’s easier this season, he told me to respond ‘no’ to all of them when he brought them over.”
“When...when was that?” Her heart pulsed in her throat.
“Last Monday morning.”
Lexi’s breath hitched, realizing Luke had decided not to go to all the events that made New York City a billionaire’s playground after they’d been together.
Bossy Billionaire Page 10
