Mark glares at me from across the table, his gaze reading mine. I always feel so naked when he does this.
“A few more days,” he agrees.
“Let’s pack it up and go get something to eat.”
Without hesitation, I close my work laptop and smile. “My stomach couldn’t agree more.”
I pack up my belongings, as does Mark, but just before I head out the door, he pulls me by the waist, and down onto his lap I fall.
“I swear you’re going to break something if you keep doing that,” I growl.
He chuckles, which causes goosebumps to form down my neck and shoulders. Nuzzling the crook of my neck with his face, he murmurs, “You know you can tell me anything, right? You don’t have to wait until after New Year’s.”
I press a kiss to his forehead and sigh. “It’s only a few more days. Please, just let me hold it until then, okay?”
He pulls back, and although I can see that he doesn’t want to from the look in his eyes, he nods.
Pushing out a breath, I give him a smile of gratitude before standing. “And no more groping me at work.” I try to sound stern, but when I pivot to head out of the boardroom, a loud smack sounds against my bottom.
I glare at Mark over my shoulder, and he shrugs. “What?”
I shake my head but laugh to myself. He has a way of flipping my entire mood in only a matter of seconds. I can’t wait until after the New Year to be free of everything that stands between us and our happiness.
Ten days.
That’s it. That’s what I keep telling myself as I drive behind Jackie in her car on the way to my apartment. There’s only ten days from now and the time I’m giving Jackie to unburden whatever’s been weighing on her. I’ve had to keep myself from forcing her to tell me. I want to give her time.
Hell, I need to give myself time. A few short weeks ago, if you would’ve told me that Jackie Hinkerson would walk through the doors of Townsend Industries and I’d be fucking putty in her hands again, I would’ve cursed you and your mother to hell and back. Love has a way of making a man eat his words. Happily.
Yes, happily … joyously, even. For the first time in sixteen years, I can feel why everyone tends to love the holidays so damned much. How can you not be happy surrounded by people you love, holiday treats, lights, music, and parties? For years, the memory of my accident, months of rehab, and the depression that sank in once I realized that I’d never walk again took all of the joy out of this season. What’d made all of that a hundred times worse was that Jackie wasn’t around any longer. The pain of believing she’d up and left me because I was broken in her eyes seared through me, just as cleanly as that fall had cracked my spine.
For years, I was bitter. Never believing a woman could genuinely see past my chair to love me. Even once I started to believe it was possible, I didn’t want any of the women I came across. They were nice. Most of them were great, actually, but they weren’t for me.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Jackie says as we sit at the table in my kitchen, eating the Chinese takeout I picked up on our way in from work.
Chuckling, I take a swallow of the beer I opened to have with dinner. “Thinking about tomorrow. It’s the 23rd,” I answer honestly.
Her head angles to the side as her eyelids lower. “I know.” She reaches her hand across the table, taking mine. I squeeze.
“Our first December 23rd together since that night.” I pull at her arm, and she stands from her chair, moving over to me.
I roll away from the table, giving her space to sit in my lap—my favorite position for her to be in. Instead of sitting sideways, however, Jackie surprises me when she hikes up the black skirt she’s wearing and straddles my legs.
“I need to tell you something,” she whispers against my lips.
“Tell it.”
Taking my face into her hands, she searches my eyes for something. “I love you.” She sighs as if a weight’s been lifted off of her shoulders. “You don’t have to say it back. It’s way too soon. I mean, we’ve only been together for a few weeks, right? And shit, are we even together? That’s kind of presumptuous of me.”
“Jackie?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re about to sit on my cock. It doesn’t get anymore together than that.”
Her eyes balloon before she bursts out laughing.
“I love you, too. Never stopped.”
A wrinkle appears between her eyebrows. “How can you say that? You hated me when I first walked into that boardroom a few weeks ago.”
Shaking my head, I say, “I thought I hated you. The truth is, I only wanted to hate you.”
She grins. “I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I’ll take it.”
I don’t know who moves in first, but we end up meeting in the middle, our lips finding one another’s. As always, the kiss sweeps away the need for any further conversation. I roll us away from the table and maneuver down the hallway to my bedroom.
As soon as we cross over the threshold, Jackie’s hand makes its way into my pants, searching out my cock.
“You’re getting good at that,” I murmur against her lips, noting how adept she’s become at what it takes to get me aroused. Hell, before my injury, I remember there were times when all she had to do was walk in the room, and I’d feel myself grow hard. And while my body doesn’t respond as quickly physically anymore, it only takes a few strokes of her hand before I feel my cock starting to come to life.
“I want you in my mouth.”
“Fuck,” I croak out as she slides off my lap and comes to her knees in front of me.
“No,” she urges, her hands stopping mine from undoing my pants the rest of the way. “I want to do it. You just relax.”
I let my arms fall over the arms of my chair as she makes sure to secure the brakes before returning to undo my jeans. My eyelids become heavy, but I don’t dare close them. I watch as she works to pull down my jeans. I assist by bracing my hands against the chair and lift my hips. She pulls my pants and boxers down the rest of the way.
“Shiiit,” I groan as her mouth wraps around the tip of my cock. This time, I can’t help but squeeze my eyes shut as the tingles from my erection begin to intensify. My stomach muscles clench, and my belly grows warm. I let my hands fall to Jackie’s hair, totally messing it up from the neatly tucked high bun she was wearing.
I begin to picture her waking in my bed with fucked up hair from the activities we’d done the night before, and I swear I grow harder. I have to open my eyes to see the real thing in action, not just a picture from my memory.
A groan escapes my lips when I find her eyes on me. We stare at one another, and the image of my cock in her mouth, as she does her best to suck me dry, completely undoes me. I tug at her hair more, clenching my fingers into a fist. The only thing stopping me from erupting is the fear that my hold might be too rough for her. But she sweeps that thought away when her head begins bobbing up and down at a ferocious pace. Her sucking becomes harder, and she pauses at the tip to swirl her tongue around the entire perimeter of my rod. All while still keeping her eyes locked on me.
That’s what undoes me. With one hand fisted in her hair and the other squeezing around the arm of my chair, I let go.
I stiffen from the waist up as the orgasm takes control. I have to fight to keep my eyes open, and in doing so, I watch as Jackie takes all of me, swallowing every drop that emerges from my shaft. It’s nearly enough to make me come again.
When she finally pulls back, allowing my cock to spill out of her mouth on a loud pop, her hair is a mess, her lipstick is smudged, and her eyes gloss over with arousal. In other words, she looks fucking incredible.
“How about we move this to the bed?” she requests.
My heart flips over in my chest. Yeah, this woman is mine, and there’s no turning back.
Chapter 16
“Oh my God,” I yelp as I groggily take in the time. “Mark, wake up. We overslept,” I order as I move over him to get
out of the bed.
“What?” he questions, yawning.
“The time. It’s almost eight o’clock. We have to be at work in thirty minutes, and I have to get dressed. I don’t even have any clothes here,” I gripe as I hurriedly look under his bed, searching for my clothes from the night before.
Above me, I hear Mark yawning. “This wouldn’t be a problem if you kept some clothes here like I keep telling you to.”
Finding my pantyhose and skirt, I stand and glare at him. “Now is not the time to discuss this.” I dress once I find the purple silk top I wore to work yesterday, sure I missed a few buttons.
“Why aren’t you hurrying?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I like watching you,” he answers, sitting up on his elbows and staring.
He looks so damn sexy in the morning with his hair all messed up and that damn grin on his face.
“You won’t be wearing that smile when Aaron Townsend reams you out for showing up late.”
He shrugs. “First time being late in almost three years working with him. After weeks of putting in late hours to help oversee this deal. Somehow, I think it’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, well, Townsend doesn’t seem like the type to play around or to accept the excuse that you’re late because you enjoyed staring at your girlfriend for too long.”
His grin widens.
“What?”
“As many times as he’s shown up late for work because he was occupied with his wife. Trust me, he’ll understand. Besides, Aaron’s a taskmaster, sure, but he’s not a slavedriver or unreasonable.”
My frown deepens. Mark sounds utterly unbothered by our lateness. “I still have to go home, shower, and change, and then get to the office. Oh man, and I need to check in on Mama.”
I begin patting my waist for my phone. When I recognize the pockets are empty, I dart out of Mark’s bedroom and head up the hall to the living room where I dumped my purse. Pulling out my cell, I see there’s a missed call from my mom.
Unmindful of the early hour, I call back but receive no answer.
“Everything okay?” Mark asks as he emerges from the hallway, dressed in a pair of boxers only.
I shake my head. “Mama called me last night but didn’t leave a message, and she’s not answering the phone.”
“She would’ve called again if something were the matter, right?”
“I need to get home.” I grab my purse and my keys, and head toward the door. That ominous feeling from yesterday is back, and it’s more worrisome than ever. My mother never calls me, not late at night. That little voice in the back of my head that kept reminding me to play things smart, not to get too attached to Mark, and to remember to finish what I started, grows louder.
As I take the road that leads home, a million thoughts race through my head of why my mother called me last night. She could’ve been bored and wanted to talk. That thought alone causes my heart to strain. As happy as I am with Mark and would rather spend the night in his bed than anywhere else, I still have to think about my mother.
She’s an adult, sure, but she’s so fragile. Even before my father passed. I attribute her fragility to him repeatedly ruling her with his iron fist for all of these years. But since he died, it’s as if she’s lost all sense of direction.
I run my hand through my wild hair, panicking about my mother and wondering what excuse I’m going to give Jase and the other members of the management team at Cypress. I’m only two and a half months into this job and don’t want to screw it up. I need that bonus.
I’m hit by a small ounce of relief as I pull into the driveway. At least the house is still standing, and there aren’t any other cars here aside from my mother’s—which she hasn’t used in the months I’ve been living here.
“Mama!” I call as I enter the front door. Waiting for a response, I pick up on the eerie silence. It’s as if the house is quietly begging me to step inside farther and uncover its secrets. A piece of me wants to run the other way. The hammering in my chest already warns me that the deeper I move inside, I’m ultimately going to find something I won’t be able to unsee.
Forcing my feet to move, I toss my purse and keys on the end table by the couch in the living room and notice there are two glasses set out on the glass table. They’re both sitting on coasters. Lifting one, I sniff and realize it’s half-filled with a rum and Coke.
“Mama.”
No answer.
The bedroom. That’s where she’d been at this time of the morning. I run up the stairs as the warning bells in my head go on full alert. My mother isn’t the type to leave used glasses just sitting on the coffee table.
Pushing the door open, I hope to find her in the bed, sleeping. Unfortunately, the bedding is wrinkled, but she’s not there. I start to call again, but a light out of the corner of my eye catches my attention.
The master bathroom.
A shiver moves through me. I don’t want to go any farther, but I have to. As I do, the tension in my body grows because I suspect that I’ll find something horrible on the other side of that door.
Inhaling, I use my arm to open the door all the way, and as soon as I do, I see her foot hanging over the side of the bathtub. Moving closer, I see the halfway filled tub of water, except it’s all red—liquid red surrounding my mother’s prone body.
“Oh, Mama,” I cry out, falling to my knees.
Where the hell is she?
The question screams in my head as my gaze volleys between the door and the front of the boardroom. Every few minutes, a new person enters the room, but my heart sinks because not one of them has been Jackie so far.
We’re meeting with Cypress one final time before the announcement at the Townsend Industries New Year’s Eve party. This meeting is basically to cross any last remaining T’s and dot all the I’s before the official announcement. The team from Cypress consists of ten men and women, and not one of them is Jackie.
Where is she?
I tried calling her phone at least a half a dozen times between the time she left my condo and now. It’s well after three p.m., and I still haven’t heard from her. I don’t know what pisses me off more … my unanswered calls or that her colleagues haven’t made any mention of her absence.
“We’ve all been working hard on this merger over the past few months. Especially these last eight weeks. Thanks to that work, we’ll safely be able to announce this merger at the holiday party in just over a week. I assume, until then, no one will have a problem keeping their mouths shut,” Aaron says from the head of the table, leveling a look at everyone on Cypress’ side of the room.
“Absolutely, Aaron. We’re just as invested as you and your team to ensure this all goes off without a hitch.”
Aaron snorts derisively. My guess is he can’t stand the bootlicking tone in Jase’s response. It sounds eerily similar to nails on a chalkboard, and I barely keep from rolling my eyes. My irritation is heightened by Jackie’s absence and no mention of her.
“Speaking of my team, I’d like to give a special acknowledgment to Mark, who worked diligently to ensure the finalization of this deal.”
My eyes widen in surprise, not so much by his words, but by the stern look Aaron gives me. It’s not his typical scowl, but more of a conveyance of respect.
“Without the additional hours you put in, this deal wouldn’t have gone through as quickly as it has, Mark.”
I nod. “Thank you, Aaron. I’d also like to point out that I wasn’t alone working all of those hours.” Turning, I face the employees from Cypress. “Jackie Hinkerson played a huge role in seeing through this deal as well. Why is she not at this table?” I ask pointedly.
Jase and a couple of other employees look between one another.
“We thought she would’ve called you, Mark.”
“Where is she?” I ask again, glaring at Jase, who failed to answer my question.
“Uh, maybe we should speak privately.”
I swallow back the desire to curse him out or reach across
the table and grab him by the collar of his shirt. Turning to Aaron, I see him staring at me. He looks at me hard in the eyes for a silent minute before nodding.
“Jase, you and Mark step out to talk. We’ll continue with this meeting.”
Sighing, I pull back from the table and head toward the door, followed by Jase. I don’t say anything until we reach the front part of the office lobby where my desk resides.
“What happened?” I demand, turning to him.
“This morning, Jackie called in. She was hysterical, according to our assistant.”
“You didn’t speak to her?”
He swallows, and fear moves into his eyes. Probably from the lethal tone in my voice, but I don’t stop to consider his feelings too much.
“What happened?”
“Her mother had some sort of accident.”
“Some sort? You didn’t bother to ask what the hell happened?”
“We were all busy getting ready to come over to Townsend.”
“And take all the credit for a project she’s been working her ass off to complete. Where is she now?”
“The hospital, I believe. She called from the ambulance.”
I shake my head and turn to my desk, grabbing my wallet and car keys.
“Mark, where’re you going? I thought the meeting was still going on?” Suzette asks as I push through the door to exit the lobby as she’s coming through them.
“It is. I gotta go,” I say, not bothering to give her an explanation.
“Must be why Mr. Townsend called me up to the meeting,” she says as I move past her toward the elevator.
In my head, I consider the possibilities. Jase hadn’t said which hospital Jackie was on her way to, but there’s only one hospital with a level 1 trauma center, and it's closest to her side of town. I bet my life she’s at Memorial Hospital.
So, that’s the direction I head in once I get into my Mustang and peel off. On the way, I try again to call Jackie’s phone.
A Holiday Temptation: A Holiday Novella Page 13
