The CEO's Dilemma ; Undeniable Passion

by Lindsay Evans

  He gently put her on the bed but he had no such gentleness left for himself. Roman yanked off his shirt and pants before coming to claim her, his body large and warm. His aroused flesh nudged between her legs and he immediately kissed her, devouring her breathless cries. The thickness of his sex was intoxicating and she traced his length with her fingers.

  “I want this,” she breathed into his mouth.

  “You’re driving me crazy!” he ground out. “I can’t think when I’m like this.” His groan sounded as if he was being tortured.

  Instead of giving her what she wanted, what she needed, Roman reached over to the bedside drawer and yanked out a strip of condoms. He made short work of rolling one onto his thick length. “Aisha... Aisha.” He focused on her breasts again, his mouth, his hands, his breath pulling her already intense arousal higher. “What are you doing to me?”

  She gripped his muscular shoulders as he held on to the thickness of his sex and slowly guided it inside her. “Anything you can stand,” she breathed as the hot stalk of his maleness fully penetrated her. Wet with desire, she took him in and latched her legs around him, moving against him, eager to show him how much she needed him.

  He groaned again and slowly started to move.

  The feel of him inside her had her eyes rolling back in her head. So thick, so powerfully male. She groaned his name and dug her nails into his back, meeting him slow thrust for slow thrust.

  His lips moved against her ear. “I love how you feel around me.” He plunged inside her, deep and strong, then retreated before taking her again. Rhythmic and sweet. His words continued, a low and hot stream of delicious murmurings in her ear that spurred Aisha on. The pleasure stung her all over. Made her shiver and moan and cry out and beg for more.

  The headboard knocked against the wall, combining with her shouts that echoed in the bedroom.

  “Aisha.” He grunted her name with each deep thrust inside her, and she welcomed him.

  The headboard knocked faster against the wall and he moved harder and deeper inside her. She shouted until her throat was raw as orgasm overwhelmed her again.

  Roman’s rhythm faltered and his words fell away and became only sounds, rough and desperate grunts that told her he was close. Closer. He levered himself on his arms, the muscles trembling and damp with sweat, his hips pumping relentlessly between hers. His eyes burned with desire. The breath tumbled roughly from him.

  “Come for me,” she gasped, encouraging him with her words and the rhythmic squeeze of his thickly muscled glutes. “You’re so gorgeous. I love how you look. I love how you fill me up.”

  “Damn!” He threw his head back and shouted out again, and she felt every ecstatic pulse of his flesh deep inside her as he emptied himself into her.

  His trembling arms gave way and he sagged down onto her for a moment, the heavy and damp weight of him pressing her into the bed before he let out a breath and rolled onto his back beside her.

  He swore and ran a trembling hand over his face, his breath coming ragged and hard to match hers.

  God, he was beautiful. Propped on her arm, Aisha watched the heaving breaths agitate his sleek pecs, the tight muscles of his belly, his sex still thick against his thigh in the condom. All of him was gorgeous.

  He stirred enough to pull off the condom and discard it in a nearby trash can. She heard the gentle thump seconds before he flopped back down next to her on the bed.

  When he finally opened his eyes again, she grinned down at him, feeling loose and sinfully good. “So, does this mean you’re inviting me to stay for breakfast?” she asked.

  His deep-set eyes stared up into hers as he curled fingers around the back of her neck and drew her down for a slow kiss. When they pulled apart, there was a world of mystery in those eyes of his. He licked his damp lips then slowly traced his thumb along her jaw and her lower lip. She sucked the thick digit into her mouth and caught it between her teeth.

  “You can stay here as long as you want,” he whispered, and sent her foolish heart soaring.

  Chapter 16

  “Is that a baton under the sheet or are you glad to see me?”

  Roman slowly woke to the sound of Aisha’s soft laughter and her gentle weight against his naked body. His body stirred first, hips juddering under the sweet weight before his mind caught up with what he was doing. Aisha, resting on top of him, watched him with laughter in her eyes while her body matched his movement.

  With a low groan, he pushed the thickness of his morning desire between the welcoming spread of her thighs.

  “What if I said it was both?” he murmured. Her waist was warm under his hands. Slowly he swept his palms up her back to the slender line of her neck.

  “Then I’d call you a liar, sir.” Aisha moved against him again. “No dead piece of wood ever felt like this.”

  Another helpless sound leaked out of him from her sensual antics and she giggled, dropping her face to his chest. Her breath huffed against his skin and he couldn’t stop smiling.

  “That’s quite a thing to accuse a man of being when you’re lying in his bed.”

  She nipped his chest then licked away the sting before he even realized there was any pain. “I guess that makes me some kind of liar, too.”

  Roman laughed then groaned when that hot mouth migrated to his nipple and sucked. “Aisha...” His hips bucked under her. “Unless you want to stay in the bed all morning, you should stop what you’re doing.” There were a few things on his schedule for the day but, at the moment, he couldn’t recall any of them.

  Another soft breath blew against his skin and a hot tongue skimmed over his nipple. “And if I don’t stop?” She sucked the nub into her mouth and Roman just about jerked off the bed from the force of the pleasure licking through him.

  “Then—” He abruptly lifted her light weight and flipped them over in the bed. Her squeal of surprise burst into the room and then her light and contagious laughter. She wriggled against him and Roman gripped her hips, slid down her body until the humid flower of her sex was open right in front of his hungry mouth. “Then, I’m going to start my breakfast a little early today.”

  * * *

  They ended up staying in bed through breakfast and part of lunch, sharing stories and laughter until the insistent growl of her stomach drove them to the kitchen. There, with her dressed in one of his shirts and Roman wearing a pair of workout pants, he made them breakfast for lunch. His special whole grain pancakes with maple syrup and scrambled eggs. She shook her head at the pancakes and instead asked for some of the eggs. She ate them, covered in ketchup, from a bowl while he watched in horror.

  “More pancakes for me,” he said and poured on the maple syrup.

  “Perfect.” She moaned with pleasure around a forkful of eggs. “I knew we were perfect for each other.”

  With his fork halfway to his mouth, Roman froze, but only for a moment. He didn’t think Aisha had noticed at all.

  But he couldn’t stop thinking about her words the rest of the day. While they’d finished eating and stood side by side washing and drying the dishes. In bed again less than an hour later while they’d kissed, their lips inseparable as she slowly rode him, taking her pleasure with slow and perfect rolls of her hips. Later still, in the shower, while they’d washed each other and teased and laughed again.

  Perfect. Together.

  Were they?

  No. It was impossible. There was too much between them. Her youth. The prize. The fact that there were other men out there closer to her age that she could have with just a crook of her finger. Roman couldn’t afford to consider what they had as more than a temporary thing.

  Too soon, it was time for her to go.

  On his porch, she hitched her bag over a shoulder with one hand and held tight to him with the other as they kissed one last time. “This has been the best Saturday I’ve had in a long time,” she s
aid, smiling up at him.

  It was the same for Roman, too, but he said, “You must not get out much.”

  “Well, if you recall, we didn’t get out much today, either.” It was nearly five in the evening. The sun was high but it was too late to get much of anything done. “Not that I’m complaining, obviously. It was my absolute pleasure to stay in with you.”

  Roman decided to fess up instead of letting her think the day hadn’t been as good for him. “I’ve enjoyed myself, too. I’ve enjoyed you. You rescued me from a very boring weekend.”

  “I know.” Mischief sparkled in her eyes.

  A sound of a car pulling into the driveway tugged Roman’s attention from Aisha. His brother’s copper-colored Porsche stopped behind Aisha’s Fiat. She glanced over her shoulder.

  “Looks like you have company.” Her lips brushed his one final time. “I’ll leave you to them. Until next time.”

  She pulled away from him, her slender fingers falling from his. Roman followed her out the screen door and watched as she ambled down the steps, hips twitching from side to side. Then, with a casual wave at Lance, she climbed into her bright yellow car and drove away, going just a little too fast in the tight, semicircle of the driveway.

  “Who’s that?” His brother hopped up the front steps and Roman stepped back to let him pass. “Oh, wait. That’s the woman you were practically making out with on the dance floor at the company party.”

  For some reason Lance had a hard time referring to that event as Roman’s welcome party. He idly wondered why that was.

  Roman stepped into the living room, quickly scanning the tidy area for signs of what he and Aisha had been up to. Not that his brother needed anything as obvious as a pair of misplaced underwear as an excuse to start talking mess.

  “That was Aisha, yes,” he said, simultaneously relieved and sad that she hadn’t left anything behind.

  “What, that’s the third time you’ve hung out, isn’t it?” Lance headed directly for Roman’s kitchen and started making himself an espresso from the machine Roman barely used. “She’s sexy, even if she looks a little young for you. Young doesn’t mean innocent, though, Roman.” A delicate espresso cup clicked against the granite countertop when Lance took it down from the cupboard. “Most of the women you’ve ended up with usually wanted something from you. I remember that much about your sad love life.”

  “Aisha isn’t like anyone else I’ve been with before.” Roman immediately dismissed the idea of Aisha wanting anything from him, although that dismissal wasn’t without the familiar pang of anxiety. “She’s an architect with a great career ahead of her. She doesn’t need or want anything from me.”

  The espresso bean grinder growled. “Architect?” Lance looked over his shoulder at Roman. “Aisha Clark? The architect who won the canceled Sykes Prize?” His brother shook his head. “Are you kidding? She could want a lot from you.”

  Hell. Roman could’ve thumped himself in the forehead.

  He’d been so busy thinking about what Aisha might or might not have left behind that he hadn’t thought about the information his brother didn’t need to know. He loved Lance more than he loved himself some days, but that didn’t mean he was oblivious to how malicious his brother could be.

  “There’s nothing about Aisha you need to worry about, Lance.” Hadn’t he already had this conversation with his brother? Roman passed the mess Lance was making and headed for the kettle. “What brings you to my side of town on your biggest party night of the week?”

  “I’m actually meeting a friend near here and thought I’d stop by,” Lance said.

  “Really?”

  Roman refilled the kettle with water from the tap and put it on a high flame, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The espresso machine trickled the strong beverage into the small cup, breaking the silence between them.

  “Well, actually, I wanted to make sure you’re still planning on handing the company over to me next year.” Looking deliberately nonchalant, Lance leaned back against the countertop and sipped his coffee.

  Roman watched the steam rise from the cup and wreathe his brother’s face. “That’s the plan,” he said, grabbing a mug for tea from the dish drainer near the sink.

  “Okay, good.”

  “Why, what’s up?”

  “You didn’t see the company profile in Forbes magazine?”

  Forbes? The only reading Roman had done since agreeing to take on the responsibility of the company was of reports, contracts and, as of his conversation early last night with Aisha, a headhunter’s web site to get used to the idea of finding a new assistant.

  “I think you already know the answer to that. What’s in there I should see?” Roman asked, but he wasn’t that curious. Some games his brother played just weren’t that interesting to him.

  There was something, though, that had obviously unsettled Lance. His brother moved restlessly around the large kitchen, touching things as he passed—Aisha’s mug in the dish drainer, the silver tea tin that had belonged to their mother, the handle of a drawer. All the while, he sipped his espresso, saying nothing. Maybe waiting for Roman to break the silence.

  Roman had patience to spare, though. He pulled the tea tin toward him and waited.

  Finally, Lance spoke again. “There’s a profile about Sykes Global in the magazine. A kind of puff piece that the PR department obviously okayed. Said you were doing a pretty decent job for the short amount of time you’ve been at the helm.”

  “That was nice of them.” And quick. Roman hadn’t known there was any PR massaging in the works about him coming on as the new CEO.

  “Yes. It’s good for you. I just—you know—don’t want you to get a swollen head now that they say you’re not too bad at this CEO thing and forget about what you promised me.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Roman said and watched the relief take over his brother’s face, spreading across fine features that were so much like their mother’s. “The most important thing is to do what’s best for the company, no matter what the magazines decide to write about.”

  The teakettle began to wail behind him, sounding like an alarm he couldn’t ignore.

  Chapter 17

  “Hey, Aisha! Over here.”

  Aisha adjusted the picnic basket she carried and searched the hilly park for the voice that called out to her. It was a Sunday in Piedmont Park and it seemed like everyone and their mother was out. At least that was true for her and her siblings. It took her a few seconds to spot them. Devyn, Ahmed and their mother on the huge, psychedelic-print picnic blanket Elle had bought her husband as a joke. They sat out in the open and away from trees, basking in the hot sun. Aisha waved.

  Because of the long Friday night and then part of Saturday she’d spent with Roman, she hadn’t finished her Sykes project. So, when her mother had suggested the picnic, she’d told them to go ahead while she made some last-minute changes. She’d spent all of Saturday evening and early Sunday morning on the project. The work had been swift and easy, all the things she’d learned about Roman’s mother swimming in her head. It had gone so well that she’d sent him the design she’d created, which he’d approved with an unequivocal response. “This is perfect.”

  A gigantic smile on her face, she’d sent the updated plans to the Sykes Prize Committee for final approval before throwing the fried chicken and potato salad into her basket. She made it out to the park only half an hour after her family.

  If she didn’t have her hands full, she’d pat herself on the back.

  “You look happy,” Dev said as Aisha got close.

  “I am happy!” She flopped onto the blanket and dropped the food down beside her. “It’s a beautiful day and I get to see you guys.” She crawled across the blanket to hug them one by one.

  Her siblings exchanged a look. “You must have gotten some last night,” Dev said with a grin.

 
“Not last night, no.” Aisha stuck out her tongue at her sister.

  “Respect, please. Your mother is sitting right here.” Her mother laughed as she reached for the picnic basket and unloaded what Aisha had brought.

  “Oh, good! I was ready to kill for some good fried chicken.” Devyn pounced on the container, immediately taking out a drumstick. Only she could make attacking fried chicken seem ladylike. She nibbled on the drumstick and sighed in bliss. “Thanks, sister.”

  “My pleasure.” Aisha reached for the pound cake she knew her sister had spent the morning making although she’d initially claimed to be too swamped with gallery stuff to bake. “Thanks for making the cake. I love you more and more every day,” she said seriously.

  Dev giggled and kept on eating.

  Ahmed leaned back in the sun, his arms bared in a tank top, his face peaceful. There was a half-finished glass of orange juice settled on a cup holder next to him in the grass.

  “So aside from the obvious, how’s your project going for Sykes?” he asked.

  “Actually, I finished it late last night and sent it off this morning before leaving the house.”

  “Word?” Her brother looked impressed. “Congrats!”

  “Thanks.” Aisha could feel her entire face breaking out in the biggest smile. “I love how it turned out. It went so well toward the end.” She told them about the ideas that had come to her, how easy it had felt, almost dreamlike, to delve into the life of a woman who’d made such an indelible mark on one of the most powerful men she knew. “It was actually kind of amazing.”

  Dev bagged up the chicken leg she’d gnawed to the bone. “Things with Roman must be going amazing, too. Right?”

  Even though they talked about things like this all the time and Aisha was never shy about sharing tales of her sex life, a blush scorched her from hairline to breast.