by Bella Andre
Zach jumped out of his car in front of her building and nearly knocked over a group of poodles as he ran inside to get to her. Her assistant was in the middle of saying hello when he barged past her and into Heather’s office.
It nearly killed him to take the time to lock the door behind him and pull down the blinds on her window before he grabbed her from where she was standing at her file cabinet. The papers in her hands scattered all over the floor as he slid his hands into her hair.
A second later, her legs were around his waist, and he was lowering her down over her desk, his mouth locked to hers while she kissed him back just as passionately as he was kissing her. She made a small sound of pain and he shoved a stapler out from under her. Using his hands to caress the softness of her hip where it had dug in reminded him of the way she’d felt when he’d been massaging her in the hotel.
“Missed you,” he said between nipping at her lips and yanking off her long-sleeved shirt. He pressed a kiss right between her breasts. “Needed you.”
He thought he saw her eyes flash with something more than desire as she followed suit by roughly yanking his T-shirt over his head. She leaned into his chest and he thought she was kissing him until he realized they were more little bites that she was giving him all over. Jesus, it was hot, but a whole hell of a lot more aggressive than she’d ever been before.
Despite how badly he wanted her, his internal radar was going off. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, but again there was that flash in her eyes that looked too much like anger, and when she followed it up with, “Just shut up and do me already,” he knew a hell of a lot more than nothing was wrong.
Somewhere between their extraordinary hours together at the Fairmont and now, he must have screwed up. He didn’t have the first clue how, just that he had.
With any other woman he wouldn’t have cared, would have just finished doing her and then gotten out of there. But he and Heather were more than just bang-buddies.
“What did I do?”
“You went and did your stupid race, even though you could have been hurt.” The lingering worry in her eyes was quickly masked as she snarled, “Congratulations on your big win.”
It was hard trying to think around the low level of blood in his brain, with her legs still around his and her beautiful breasts bounding around in a white cotton bra that shouldn’t have been sexy but made it nearly impossible for him to form a coherent sentence.
Still, he knew he’d better figure out how to get his brain to work real quick, because he had a feeling a whole lot more than a hot quickie was at stake.
“You watched me race?”
“Cuddles wanted to.”
She pressed her lips together hard as if she dared him to challenge that silly statement, and he barely checked the urge to lick across the firm line of her pretty lips.
“So you saw me blow the other guys out of the water?”
“Among other things,” she muttered. “You certainly don’t need me to keep congratulating you, when everyone else did such a good job of it on the race track.”
He was a guy. And he was horny as hell around Heather, especially with her stripped half-naked. But he wasn’t stupid.
She’d obviously seen the trophy girls congratulating him on the track. And it had upset her.
“I’m not going to screw around on you, Heather.”
He watched surprise and hope flicker in her eyes, before she tamped them down. “You don’t owe me any promises. It’s just sex. That’s all we’re doing. Having sex.”
Anger rose in him, just as hot as hers. “Are you going to sleep with anyone else while we’re together?”
“No.” She looked like she couldn’t believe he’d asked her that question. “God, no.”
“Then why are you assuming I’ll do it?”
She looked at him like he was a complete idiot. “It’s what every guy does.”
“No,” he told her, “not every guy. Not me.” Frustration had him saying, “I’m not your father, damn it.”
But she was shaking her head and trying to push him away. “I saw you with those girls at the racetrack. I saw you put your hands on them.”
“To push them away, not pull them in closer!”
He wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her leave his arms in anger when the only thing that had gotten him through the past thirty hours was the thought of having her back in them. “Can’t you see you’re the only one I can even think about? The only one I want? Don’t you understand that I’m losing my mind over you?”
She looked stunned by what he’d just said, as stunned as he felt himself.
“Please kiss me, Zach. Just kiss me.”
Just as willing as she was to let his words go, he kissed the breath from her lungs while stripping off her jeans and making short work of his own.
Jesus, he loved her mouth against his, loved her softness, loved those little sounds she made when he touched her just right. He slid into her slick heat, and she was so responsive she was coming almost the second he touched her between her legs.
At the last second, he realized he’d somehow forgotten to put on a condom. Somehow he managed to tough it out through her orgasm. She made a sound of protest when he pulled out and he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thighs as he kneeled down to grab a condom from his pants.
He sat down on her desk chair and quickly shoved it on, then reached for her and pulled her onto his lap, loving the feeling of sinking deep into her all over again. He could tell how much she liked it from the way she gasped as he filled her all the way up.
“It’s your turn now,” she said as she wiggled her perfect rear end over his thighs.
“My turn,” he growled against her neck, licking, kissing, nipping his way down to her breasts, which were still trying to come free from her bra, “and yours, too.”
He found he liked her breasts trapped behind cotton like that, liked having to work to taste her, to run his tongue inside the top edge of the fabric to tease the taut flesh, until her inner muscles tightened down over him and he finally gave up his own control and came with her.
“I love it when you smell like sex.” He buried his nose in the crook of her neck and licked at the sweat drying on her skin. Their quickie should at least have taken the edge off his need for her...but it hadn’t done a damn thing to make him want her less. “I love it when you taste like sex, too.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before he realized Cuddles was at their feet, rubbing against his shins.
On a gasp, Heather shifted and looked over her shoulder to find Atlas lying on the pillow in the corner, blinking up at the two of them.
“Oh my God, I forgot about the dogs.” She hopped off his lap to search for her clothes. “Atlas has never seen...I’ve always been really careful to go into the bedroom when I...”
She looked horrified as she stuttered out partial sentences. And so damn adorable with that flush on her cheeks that he had to go give her a kiss even as he laughed at her.
“He’s a big boy. He’ll get over it.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t freak out, actually, seeing you over me like that.” She was flushing even more now as she pulled her jeans back up and grabbed her shirt from the floor.
“He didn’t freak out because he knows who the boss is.”
She yanked down her shirt. “Me. I’m the boss.”
He pulled on his clothes, then scooped up Cuddles, who licked him with undisguised glee all over his face and neck. “Right. You’re the boss.”
She pushed her damp hair off her face. “I should have known you’d be even more insufferable after winning your completely pointless race.” She moved over to her desk and began to put it back to rights. “Some of us have work to do.”
He was about to reach for her again, when a knock sounded on her door.
“Heather?” Her assistant sounded worried about something more than just interrupting her boss having sex in her office. “Your
parents are here.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Oh God. She’d forgotten about her father’s phone call earlier that week. Working to try to keep her panic from taking over, Heather looked down at herself, then over at Zach.
“They’re going to know what we were doing.”
What, she silently berated herself as she made sure everything was zipped and buttoned, had she been thinking, having sex in her office?
That was just the thing. She hadn’t been thinking. The second Zach had walked in, she’d lost all control of her synapses—and her hormones. Her reaction to him was that instinctive, that primal.
He put down the puppy and moved closer to undo the tangles he’d just put into her hair.
“You look great, just like you always do.” His mouth left hers tingling again before he said, “Don’t worry, Heather. It’ll be all right.” She just shook her head at him, but he gently cupped her cheek and said, “I’ve got your back.”
She didn’t know how he always managed to do that, to completely turn her inside out no matter the circumstance, but for once she was glad for the way just one soft kiss—and a handful of sweetly confident words—had her unable to focus all of her energies on being completely freaked out about her parents’ visit.
He put his hand on the doorknob. “We’ve got this, Heather.”
Strangely, even though they’d been caught barely seconds post-sex, she did feel a whole lot more able to deal with her parents with Zach than she normally did on her own.
She’d seen him in action enough by then not to be surprised by the way he had her mother eating out of his hand within seconds of saying hello. Her father, however, was slightly less than his usual charming self.
Then again, had any man ever come even close to out-charming him?
“Heather?” Her mother’s eyes moved from Zach to Heather, then to the desk they’d made a mess of. “Is this a bad time?”
Belatedly, Heather realized she’d forgotten to put her shoes back on. She moved to quickly slip them on, but not quickly enough for her parents not to notice what she was doing.
Her father pulled her into a hug before she could act fast enough to step out of reach. “My precious girl. How your mother and I have missed you.”
When she was actually a girl, she’d loved the way he’d come home from a business trip and hug her and tell her how much loved her, that she was the center of his world. But she hadn’t been that naïve for a very long time. She knew better than to think anyone was the center of her father’s world but himself.
Her father didn’t take his arm from around her waist, as though he was trying to make some kind of statement to Zach about whom she really belonged to. Atlas stood up, his ruff bristling, and she was glad to be able to use him as a reason to move away from her father.
He frowned at her dog. “Does he sit in your office all day?”
Heather ran a comforting hand down her dog’s back. Atlas had never liked her father. “Yes.”
Clearly not impressed with her answer, he asked, “Didn’t you get my message last week?”
“I apologize for not calling you back. This week has been really busy.” She tried not to flush at the memory of what she and Zach had just been busy doing, especially when her father looked between the two of them again, his frown deepening.
If only she’d remembered to call him back, then she could have invented a bulletproof excuse. Maybe even taken an impromptu trip out of town for a few days to somewhere she couldn’t be reached.
“I hope you’re not too busy to spend a few hours with us,” he said, effectively trapping her into an evening together.
Thankfully, Cuddles chose that moment to start barking, pulling attention away from her for just long enough to regain her equilibrium and to figure out how to respond. Zach had watched the exchange in silence and she guessed that he had quickly taken her parents’ measure.
She shot him a look that she hoped he could read as well as he read her thoughts in bed: Please don’t leave me alone with them.
Zach picked up the barking puppy and smiled at her, before turning that beautiful face of his on her parents. “Heather and I would be very pleased if you joined us tonight at 212 Stockton.”
Heather tried not to act surprised that he’d just named one of the hottest new restaurants in San Francisco. Even now that she knew how wealthy he was—and how well connected via his famous siblings—the fact that he did absolutely nothing to broadcast his wealth had her completely forgetting about it.
She could tell from the look on her father’s face that he knew just how hard it was to get a table at that restaurant. Clearly, not only could he not believe a guy in wrinkled jeans and a T-shirt had the pull to get one, but he wished he’d thought to do it first.
Her mother’s eyes were wide as she responded, “I just saw a piece about 212 Stockton on TV. It’s owned by a group of movie stars and billionaires.”
Her father’s expression darkened. “All I want is to spend quality time with my little girl, not rub shoulders with a bunch of stars with more money than morals.”
Fairly certain that Zach’s brother Smith was likely one of the “moral-free movie stars,” Heather said, “Why don’t I show you some of the improvements I’ve made to the training areas?” No doubt her parents would quiz her endlessly about Zach, and nitpick all the parts of her business that weren’t shiny and perfect, but even though she would have loved to lean on him, her parents weren’t his battle to fight. They were hers.
Only, Zach didn’t look the least bit upset about her father’s comment. If anything, he looked more relaxed than usual...reminding her of a deadly predator about to strike.
Turning the full focus of his attention to her, Zach said, “I know you have some important business to finish up,” as he gently brushed a lock of hair back from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. It was a move made even more spectacularly protective—and possessive—by how casual it was.
“I’ll show your parents around so that you can get back to work.”
Heather knew firsthand that Zach was a master at getting exactly what he wanted. But to witness him outmaneuvering her father made her glad.
And scared the bejesus out of her.
A few moments later, when her mother and father had no choice but to follow Zach and Cuddles out of her office, Heather sat down on the office chair she would never look at in the same way after what she and Zach had done on it.
Yet again, she reflected on the way Zach Sullivan had infiltrated every part of her life in one short week.
Thank God.
* * *
Zach wasn’t used to worrying about other people. Sure, he made sure to treat his employees right and his family was never far from his mind, but ultimately he knew his siblings could take care of themselves. Besides, if they needed his help with anything, they would call.
But the expression on Heather’s face when her assistant told them her parents were outside had haunted him for hours.
Heather was so strong, so confident. Sassy and beautiful and so damned smart she’d kept him on his toes every single second that he’d known her. No one and nothing should ever make her look that sad. Completely on guard, like she was trying to prepare for an emotional blow that could come at any moment.
Before he even raised his hand to knock on her front door, Atlas announced his arrival with a few loud barks. Heather opened the door and she was so breathtakingly beautiful in her dress and heels with her hair flowing around her shoulders that a split second after Cuddles leapt out of his arms to go play with Atlas, Zach was ruining her perfect hair with his hands as he kissed her.
She kissed him back with the same heat before saying, “Thank you for coming with me tonight.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said, and it was true. He couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her alone with her parents. Not when he knew how upset they made her. “I get how family can be.”
“I wish we were like y
our family, but we’re not. We don’t actually love each other.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears as she said, “We just lie about it.”
“You’ve never lied about anything,” he said, hating the way she said we. “They’re your parents. They’re not you.” He pulled her closer. “Tell me what you need from me tonight.”
“Just this,” she said, but her voice was shaking as she repeated, “Just be here for me, like this. Just please don’t let me think about the way he treats her and how she always lets him—”
His mouth covered hers to cut off the rest of the sentence, her wish immediately his command. If she didn’t want to think about her parents’ screwed-up relationship, then he would do whatever was necessary to keep her mind on other things. Now and throughout dinner, whatever way he could.
Because he was her friend. And that’s what friends did. They looked out for each other.
And yet...even as he slid his hands under her skirt and Heather let out a soft gasp of pleasure as his fingers found her, he could almost hear the rumbles in the distance. Rumbles of something big, heavy, and impossible to avoid as it sped toward him.
He moved his hands to her bottom to lift her up from the floor and she wrapped her legs around him. But even the intense pleasure of having her heat all around him wasn’t enough for him to get some distance from the emotions that were trying to nail him straight in the middle of his chest. Right from the first moment they’d met, he hadn’t been able to keep his mind, hands, or mouth off her.
And his heart was heading the same way, whether he wanted it to or not.
It was pure, practiced instinct for Zach to fight these feelings. To pretend they weren’t true. To tell himself as he undid his pants and was inside of her seconds later, that Heather was the perfect friend to have sex with, and nothing more.
She kissed him with a wildness that told him how much she needed this distraction, this outlet, this chance to let herself be fierce, bold, without risking retribution. He knew she wanted to be taken with that same fierceness, so he didn’t hold back as he slammed against her, pushing her into the wall even as she pushed right back at him with her hips.
