Hard Sell (21 Wall Street)

by Lauren Layne

  He slides down my body, lips and hands not missing a single erogenous zone as I squirm beneath him.

  His fingers hook into the waistband of my yoga pants, his eyes holding mine as he tugs both those and my underwear down my legs. My socks come off with the pants, and he tosses the last of my clothes aside.

  His eyes are dark as they look over every inch of me, and my breath catches with want and the unexpected vulnerability of being completely naked in front of him while he’s still fully clothed.

  I start to sit up, but he places a hand against my stomach as he lowers to his knees beside the couch.

  His mouth is warm on the inside of my calf, his fingers insistent, demanding my thighs part as his lips skim up my leg.

  The first touch of his tongue nearly undoes me, but he’s not done. Not even close. He takes his time, savoring me with long licks and teasing flicks until my fingers are tangled in his hair, silently begging him for release.

  As with everything between us, though, sex is a war, and Matt’s determined to win this battle.

  “Tell me,” he murmurs, pulling back slightly. “Tell me what you want.”

  I stay silent, and he pulls back another inch. “Come on,” he teases, only his breath touching me.

  I bite my lip and arch into him, trying to bring his mouth closer, but his hand spreads low over my belly, holding me still. He gives me a light lick, and I cry out. So close . . .

  “Tell me,” he urges, his voice rougher now. “Let me know you want it to be me, love.”

  It’s the unexpected endearment that unravels me—the vulnerability of it lets me be vulnerable. I run my fingers softly through his hair and hold his gaze. “Matt.”

  He closes his eyes on a groan, and this time when he puts his mouth on me it’s with purpose. He presses his tongue to me, circling with gentle insistence, knowing exactly what I need.

  A sharp cry slips out as I let go—a surprise, since I’m usually more of a silent type.

  Matt’s hands and mouth gentle as I come down from my orgasm, his touch light and soothing.

  I push myself to a seated position as he stands, even as my limbs feel heavy and sated.

  I start to reach for him, but he gently grabs both hands. “You don’t have to.”

  I frown in puzzlement. Matt’s always been a generous lover, but normally by now he’d be on top of me. Inside me.

  He smiles and catches my chin. “I just meant that I wanted to do that. Not because I wanted anything in return. Because I wanted you.”

  The words are a rush. “Noted. And appreciated. But don’t even think about being greedy, Mr. Cannon.” I reach for his belt buckle. “Because I want you, too.”

  Matt’s eyes darken with desire, and together we shed his clothes in record time.

  I mean to suggest we move to the bedroom, but he’s already lowering over me.

  His hands are rough and needy as he pulls a condom from his wallet, then spreads my legs. His erection is hot and hard as he nudges me.

  Matt lets out a groan and nips my shoulder before lifting his head and locking eyes with mine. “I need you. Now.”

  I cup his face with my hands, spreading my legs wider in invitation.

  His lips capture mine at the precise moment he thrusts inside me, and I gasp against his mouth.

  “Damn you,” he whispers hoarsely. “Damn you for what you do to me.”

  Back at you.

  My hands move over his broad back, my hips meeting his every thrust.

  He kisses me, and I forget everything. Our messy past, his parents, the stupid contract, the fighting. There’s only him, only us.

  Matt hooks an arm behind my knee, changing the angle just slightly so that every thrust hits me just right.

  I cling to his shoulders, my nails digging in in warning.

  “Come,” he growls against my throat. “Come again.”

  I do, and he comes with me, our cries unapologetically echoing throughout the quiet living room.

  We catch our breath together, neither moving or saying a word. Thank God. I’m not sure there’s anything to say.

  I’m both dismayed and relieved when the moment’s realized by Juno, who comes back into the living room and shoves her rabbit squeaky toy against Matt’s hip.

  Matt chuckles and gently pushes the dog’s face away, which only makes Juno more insistent.

  “All right, all right, you win,” Matt says, pulling away and standing up. “I knew there was a reason we usually do this at my place.”

  Actually, the reason we usually “do this” at his place is because it feels safer. Having him in my home is unnerving enough. Having him naked in my home is a whole other thing entirely.

  We both gather up our clothes, not meeting each other’s eyes as we get dressed.

  “Okay,” Matt mutters to the dog as he zips his pants. “Now I can play with your damn toy.” He winces as he pulls the bunny from Juno’s snout.

  “Yeah, they get a little . . . slobbery,” I say as he tosses the rabbit across the living room, to Juno’s delight.

  He smiles and wipes his palm against his pant leg, but Juno returns with the toy for another round. Matt repeats the process, playing fetch with my dog’s disgusting toy as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

  He picks up the abandoned tea and winces as he takes a sip. “I hate tea.”

  “But you stayed for a cup.”

  He smiles. “I did, didn’t I.”

  I swallow, wanting to know what it means but too scared to ask. “You want something else to drink?” I say instead.

  Matt grins. “You asking me to stay?”

  My heart lurches at the question, at what it means. I don’t do this sort of thing. I don’t ask men to stay for tea and sex and lingering.

  And yet here I am, wanting desperately for him to stick around, even as I’m terrified he’ll say no.

  “I’m asking if you want a drink,” I dodge.

  He grins cockily. “No, you’re asking if I want to stay.”

  I look away.

  “Sabrina.”

  “What?” I snap.

  He waits until I relent and meet his eyes. Then he smiles, softer this time. “I’d like to. Stay, I mean.”

  I shrug as though it’s no big deal and doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.

  But it matters. A lot.

  And I’m pretty sure he knows it.

  23

  MATT

  Monday Afternoon, October 2

  I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.

  I’m sitting across the table from a billionaire who’s contemplating giving me free rein to his money. And instead of visualizing the moment of victory when I get Jarod Lanham’s business, I’m visualizing him. And Sabrina.

  As a couple.

  The image is bitter as hell, and yet I can’t get it out of my head. Because not only is Lanham richer than hell, he’s also . . . decent.

  And decent-looking. I’ve never really given two shits about whether women consider another man attractive. Sure, I’m vaguely aware that Ian and Kennedy are good-looking guys. And that Wolfe’s chief technology officer, Dan, looks like a mushroom. But generally speaking, I’m secure enough in my own appeal to the opposite sex not to worry about the competition.

  And yet, as I sit here, waiting for Lanham to finish being schmoozed by some corporate goon who ambled over to interrupt our lunch, a guy whose name I’ve already forgotten, I find my attention’s not on my sell. It’s not on the overpriced Kobe burger I’ve barely touched. Instead, I’m looking at Lanham, trying to figure out if he’s Sabrina’s type.

  Which is bullshit. Sabrina doesn’t have a type. Does she?

  It bothers me that I don’t know.

  What I do know is the way Lanham was looking at Sabrina last week at lunch, and later at the bar. He’d been a man who saw something he wanted—her.

  And for her part, Sabrina had seemed . . . intrigued.

  I take a sip of my drink, st
udying him from a woman’s point of view. From Sabrina’s.

  Damn it. No way around it, the man’s tall, dark, handsome, and absurdly rich.

  No, not rich. I’m rich. Jarod Lanham is overwhelmingly, couldn’t-spend-all-his-money-if-he-wanted-to wealthy.

  Not that Sabrina cares about that. I don’t know the details of her financial situation, but from what I can tell, she’s plenty comfortable. Her apartment, while small, is in a luxury building, and I’ve never seen her hesitate buying anything she wants, whether it be a new handbag or an expensive glass of wine.

  Or high-end clothes. But those, of course, she simply put on my bill. I didn’t mind. But Lanham really wouldn’t mind. Hell, he could have bought her the entire store if he felt like it.

  The man who’s been talking Lanham’s ear off apparently realizes he’s overstayed his welcome and shakes both our hands in farewell before returning to his table.

  Lanham smiles in apology. “Sorry about that. I barely know the guy, but he seems to think we go way back.”

  “No problem.” I take a half-hearted bite of my burger; he takes a more enthusiastic forkful of his salad.

  I’m about to dive into my assessment of his current portfolio, which I spent half the night reviewing, when he speaks first.

  “You from here, Cannon?”

  “Sort of. I grew up in Connecticut, but my dad worked here in the city. We’d come into Manhattan for the usual things—Broadway shows, the tree at Rockefeller Center during the holidays, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.”

  I don’t tell him that at about half those events, it had been my dad and Felicia who’d brought me, not my dad and mom. Not because my mom wasn’t all about the New York stuff but because it gave her an opportunity to spend the day with her flavor of the month. Because that’s the sort of fucked-up thing my parents did that was okay in the name of “modern parenting.”

  “Never done any of that,” he says, lifting his glass of red wine and swishing it thoughtfully. “Think I’d like to.”

  “It’s overrated.” I pick up a fry, cram it into my mouth. “The parade’s crazy, the tree’s the same damn thing every year, and don’t even get me started on musicals.”

  He gives a slight smile. “You’re awfully cynical of your city.”

  “None of that’s my city,” I say emphatically. “Not the real city. We New Yorkers may be used to the touristy stuff the same way we are used to the chaos of Times Square or the exorbitant price to get to the top of the Empire State Building. But the heart of the city is its people, not the famous places or events.”

  Lanham thinks on this a moment, then nods in approval and sips his wine. “I like that. Hell, I like the city.”

  I eat another fry, watching him. “You contemplating a move?”

  “I am.”

  Huh. Normally I’d be thrilled. If he signs on as a client, and that’s still a big if, his local status would make my job easier. Easier to meet with him in person to discuss strategy, easier to schmooze him and keep him happy so that his money stays with Wolfe.

  Now, however, I can’t help but wonder if his reasons for staying have something to do with someone.

  I mentally slap myself for being ridiculous. He’s met Sabrina twice, and one of those encounters had lasted fewer than five minutes.

  He sets his wineglass back on the table and pushes away his salad plate. Arms on the table, he leans forward slightly, his expression intent. “Let me ask you something.”

  “Sure.” I push aside thoughts of Sabrina, forcing myself to focus on my job. On saying the right things to land this dude already.

  “If I sign with you . . .”

  My pulse thrums with anticipation.

  “Does that mean your bosses will get off your back about the Vegas shit?”

  I manage to keep myself from tensing, but barely. “Sorry?”

  He smiles. “Come on. You’re telling me they didn’t ride you hard about damaging company brand after getting caught with a hooker and coke?”

  “It was a mediocre lap dance, and I don’t touch the hard stuff,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “I believe you,” he says in a quiet, no-BS tone that tells me he means it. “But I also know that this business, hell, most businesses, run on reputation. You can’t tell me your bosses didn’t shit themselves in panic and threaten to send you to rehab.”

  I lift my drink and say nothing.

  He leans forward even more. “You didn’t go to rehab, but you did the next-best thing. You got yourself a gorgeous woman to stand by your side and dilute your playboy reputation.”

  My eyes narrow in warning, and Lanham holds up his hands in a placating motion. “No judgment. I’d do the same thing. Hell, I have done the same thing. People love a good playboy, but they’ll turn on you just as fast if you take it too far. You’re smart to hitch your wagon to Sabrina’s.”

  I maintain my silence, but he doesn’t let it drop.

  “You guys serious?”

  Again, I try to maintain my silence, but my irritation slips out. “Why all the interest?”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “Yeah,” I snap. “We’re serious.”

  He studies me, then nods and resumes eating. “All right.”

  “That’s not the answer you wanted, is it?” I say.

  He shrugs. “Sabrina’s very compelling. But I don’t make moves on another man’s woman.”

  I grit my teeth. Sabrina’s very compelling. Damn straight she is. And I don’t believe for one second that this billionaire wouldn’t make a move the moment the opportunity presented itself.

  “So, are there wedding bells in your future?”

  I resist the urge to grab his fork and stab him with it. “People can be committed without being married.”

  Lanham lifts a shoulder.

  “You don’t think so?” I ask, ignoring the fact that of all the conversations I’ve ever pictured having with Jarod Lanham, this isn’t one of them.

  He sits back in his chair and looks at me. “Call me old-fashioned, but I like the idea of a man and woman committing to each other. One person. With vows.”

  I’m careful to hide my surprise. The Jarod Lanham I’ve seen in tabloids hardly seems the marrying type. He’s had girlfriends, sure, but he’s had a lot of them. Back-to-back. Nothing about the guy has ever indicated he wants to settle down.

  He gives a rueful smile. “You don’t agree?”

  I shrug and keep my answer deliberately vague, since I barely know the guy. “Doesn’t matter if I do or not. It’s your life. You want to walk down the aisle and spend a fortune on a wedding, that’s your business.”

  Lanham shakes his head. “It’s not about the wedding. It’s about what comes after. I don’t give a shit about being a fiancé, but I wouldn’t mind waking up to the same face every morning. Having someone to share my life with. A companion.”

  The words are so familiar, I think for a moment I’m experiencing déjà vu, and then it hits me. I have had this conversation before, but not with Lanham. With Sabrina.

  His thoughts on marriage mirror hers almost exactly.

  The realization makes me want to punch something. Because of how compatible they are. Because she doesn’t actually belong to me . . .

  “Sorry,” Lanham says, shaking his head. “You’re probably wondering why the hell I’m talking about my personal life instead of my portfolio.”

  His statement jolts me back to the present, and I’m more than a little annoyed to discover that . . .

  I hadn’t been wondering that.

  Despite having spent most of my career prepping to get in front of someone with this guy’s money, I’m not nearly as excited as I thought I’d be. For some reason, it just doesn’t feel as important as I thought it would.

  I hear myself going through my pitch with Lanham, discussing my strategy for his portfolio and reciting all the reasons why he’d be a fool not to sign with me, but all I can think is that this—my jo
b—is no longer the most vital thing in my life.

  The realization is terrifying.

  24

  SABRINA

  Wednesday Evening, October 4

  “If you tell me this is homemade, we can’t be friends anymore,” I say, scooping up a glob of delicious white cheese and plopping it onto toasted sourdough.

  Lara snags an olive with one hand, refills our wineglasses with the other. “If by homemade, you mean did I open the container of burrata, put it on the plate, and put olive oil and salt on top? Yep, totally homemade. I also popped that bread right in the toaster, like a Food Network boss.”

  “I freaking love burrata,” Kate says, happily chewing her own piece of bread. “And wine. And you guys.”

  I give her a look out of the corner of my eye. “How much wine has she had?” I ask Lara good-naturedly.

  “Just the one glass. But she’s been like this ever since she got here. I think she’s in love.”

  “The only thing I’m in love with is cheese,” Kate retorts.

  I lick burrata off my thumb, not entirely sure I believe her, but I suppose it’s possible. It’s hard not to be in love with cheese.

  “So, is this going to be like a thing?” Kate asks, resting her elbows on Lara and Ian’s kitchen counter. “You guys hosting spontaneous dinner parties? Because I sort of love it.”

  Lara pushes her glasses up on her nose. “You know, I sort of love it, too.” She smiles, as though surprised by the realization. “Who’d have thought that a former SEC agent would be hosting some of Wall Street’s elite in my swanky apartment?”

  “I’m almost jealous of the fab apartment, but you have to put up with Ian, and I don’t know that I could,” Kate says, sipping her wine.

  “You do that all day long,” I point out.

  “Nope. Different,” Kate says. “The guys are totally different in their work habitat.”

  “How’s that?” Kennedy says, ambling into the kitchen.

  “Thought you were having man talk on the balcony,” I say, tilting my head back toward the glass doors off Ian’s living room that lead to a small outdoor space with a hell of a view.

  “We are, but . . .” He holds up his empty wineglass as explanation for why he’s in the kitchen, then reaches for a bottle of red on the counter. “Besides, this is far more interesting. How are we different in the office?” he asks Kate again.